The Dolphin, WC1

Tucked away just off the main drag. A bar and lounge with an old style tiled exterior. 2 real ales and food served. The pub has a dartboard and a pool table.

They still do London Pride in here. It wasn’t the best pint I’ve ever had, being in the “drinkable” category. Thai food is advertised (lunch for a fiver), but any diners there might have been had long gone by the time that I arrived at about 3.30 PM on Wednesday. The Watney Combe Reid signage remains extant on the outside. There are still two separate rooms, with what has all the appearance of a public bar on the left, and another room on the right signed as a restaurant. The public bar was as basic as they get, with no tables or chairs, just a few stools at the bar and at ledges by the windows, and with the room dominated by a pool table in the middle of the floor. The walls in here are decorated with framed, and some signed, photographs of (mainly football) sporting teams. I wasn’t sure whether the restaurant room was available for drinkers, and in any case not wishing to appear isolationist (the restaurant was empty) I shared the public bar with the guv’nor and a few of his regulars. There is now a London Pride clipped handpump in the Public Bar, but maybe just to show what is available as the guv’nor went through to the restaurant room to pull my pint. This is the place to go if you are after a quiet pint, although based on my one visit the ale quality isn’t brilliant as I suspect that it’s not the main seller in here. It’s not the place for you if you’re after sumptious luxury.